Category Archives: Software

Today in 1936, Alan Turing delivered to the London Mathematical Society his paper “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” In the paper, Turing described the Universal Machine, which later became known as the Turing Machine. This was an idealized … Continue reading →

40 years ago today (October 15, 1973), Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson presented their first paper on Unix at the fourth ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) held at Purdue University. The paper will later be published in the … Continue reading →

Today in 1836, Charles Babbage wrote in his notebook: “This day I had for the first time a general but very indistinct conception of the possibility of making an engine work out algebraic developments. I mean without any reference to the value of the letters. My … Continue reading →

Today in 1949, the Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer (EDSAC), the first practical stored-program computer, ran its first program and performed its first calculation. “… a thin ribbon of paper containing the program [to print a table of the squares of the … Continue reading →